Sour Lake

It’s 1911. Someone, or something, is leaving the good citizens of East Texas’s Ochiltree County savagely mutilated and drained of blood. Slow-talking Sheriff Reeves Duncan needs to
put an end to the murders, and soon. But it won’t be easy. This is the Big Thicket, dark and brooding, haunted by racial tensions and economic despair. Fortunately, Sheriff Duncan can
count on the assistance of an undersized but tough-as-rawhide Texas Ranger, two physicians, a mechanical wunderkind, and a soft-spoken idiot savant who knows the sloughs and
baygalls of the Thicket like his own backyard. This league of unimpressive gentlemen is about to be tested by the cunning and ferocity of an enemy that walks by night–and the tentacles
of a desperate sectarian plot that threatens the very survival of the human race. Cover design by Shaun Venish.

“McCandless has stripped away all the pretentions that have slowly emasculated much of horror fiction since monsters were turned into sex symbols. He’s returned us to where we
belong, crouching in the dark terrified of something we can’t understand. Texas deserves its monsters to be like everything else here, big and badass. McCandless delivers perfectly.”
– Houston Press

“There is a lot that is historically factual in this novel. That’s part of the fun of reading “Sour Lake.” At least one of the characters is based on an actual person, and sordid, unimaginable true tales of blood lust make up the seedbed for some of the violence. McCandless scrupulously advances the narrative through epistolary digressions and actual newspaper
accounts.” – San Antonio Express-News

“The author channels his inner Bram Stoker at times and moves the story along via letters, newspaper accounts and other indirect narrative devices. A Texan himself, the author bases a lot of the story on studies of regional folklore and oilfield legends. The quickly-paced tale is . . . a well-executed journey into the macabre that should give anyone pause before walking
through a desolate area at night.” – Kirkus Reviews